CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico — More than a year after his exoneration from treason charges and subsequent disappearance, notorious developer George Bluth has surfaced in police custody here, following his arrest in connection with a brawl at a beachside cantina.

Mr. Bluth was arrested Friday night in Turista McGringo’s, a local bar, after getting into an altercation with a pair of students who he believed were hitting on his companion, a Ms. Kitty Sanchez. Witnesses say the fight began after Mr. Bluth began to perform a chicken dance, a grave insult according to local custom, provoking the bartenders and busboys to charge him en masse. Police were called to break up the fight, following which Mr. Bluth unsuccessfully attempted to claim that he was actually his own twin brother Oscar.

Though definitively cleared of allegations that he constructed palaces for former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Mr. Bluth has been under subpoena in absentia for more than six months. Prosecutors hope he will testify against his wife Lucille, the alleged mastermind of widespread fraud and embezzlement at the family’s construction firm. For several years, the Bluth Company was the most notorious name on Wall Street since Enron; in early 2006, shortly before Lucille Bluth’s arrest, the company and its lone Sudden Valley development were sold to longtime rival Sitwell Construction.

Interviewed in a local jail, Mr. Bluth did not seem eager to go back to the United States. “The stifling confinement, the psychological torment, the … the unnatural acts!” he said. “I’d rather die!” When informed that he was not facing prison time, he replied, “I wasn’t talking about prison!”

“I don’t care that he’s not in serious trouble,” said Ms. Sanchez, Mr. Bluth’s former secretary, when informed that he would not be incarcerated. “I’m tired of all the turmoil and drama. I guess he’s just going to have to say goodbye to these!” She then lifted her shirt, displaying the alarmingly lopsided work of a plastic surgeon, and cried, “Whoo! Spring Break! Whoo!”

Mr. Bluth had been living incognito in Cabo San Lucas with his son Michael, the former head of the Bluth Company during its short-lived recovery, and his grandson George Michael.

“I’m only surprised my father wasn’t arrested sooner, and perhaps in a slightly less tacky bar,” said Michael Bluth, who now heads Bueno Hermano’s, a thriving local chain of frozen-banana franchises. “Look, for three years I did everything I could for my family. It was a constant struggle to keep us from going under, and in the end, I just really felt like those efforts were unappreciated. It’d take something really big to get us all together again.”

“I miss California and all,” added George Michael, “but I really like it here. I’m learning Spanish. And my shirts finally match, which is nice. And you know, Mexico has a really progressive legal system. Like, when it comes to marriage, did you know you can marry your cousin here? It’s legal.”

George Bluth’s arrest may return his once-controversial family to the public eye after many months of relative obscurity. George Oscar “Gob” Bluth, the eldest son, achieved brief notoriety during a mid-2006 stint on CBS’ Big Brother, after he inadvertently burned the contestants’ house down with a botched magic trick. After several lengthy but unsuccessful stints in graduate school, Cpl. Buster Bluth, the family’s youngest son, has been quietly serving as a crane operator in the Army Corps of Engineers.

Lindsay Bluth Funke, the Bluths’ adopted daughter, is the current head of a committee to raise money for the numerous tiny dogs left homeless by the recent Orange County earthquake. Her estranged husband, “analrapist”-turned-actor Tobias Funke, recently secured a supporting role on the popular teen soap opera The Valley, and is currently working on his second book, Take It Like a Man.

A proposed big-screen comedy loosely based on the Bluth family’s experiences was placed into turnaround at Tantamount Pictures in late 2006. Would-be producer Maeby Funke, 17, is working on a sequel to last year’s surprise horror hit, Gangy, while she shops the project around to other studios. It’s likely that Mr. Bluth’s forthcoming testimony could improve the film’s chances of getting made.

“Wow, you mean they caught Pop-Pop again?” Ms. Funke said, when reached by phone on the set of Gangy II: I’m Thirstier! “Well, that was a freebie.”